


Are We The Parts, Are We The Whole

by littlemel



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-27
Updated: 2015-01-27
Packaged: 2018-03-09 05:37:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3238307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlemel/pseuds/littlemel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everything's different when Lindsey gets pregnant</p>
            </blockquote>





	Are We The Parts, Are We The Whole

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [](http://fitofpique.livejournal.com/profile)[**fitofpique**](http://fitofpique.livejournal.com/) in the [](http://no-tags.livejournal.com/profile)[**no_tags**](http://no-tags.livejournal.com/) fic exchange. Thanks to [](http://tuesdaysgone.livejournal.com/profile)[**tuesdaysgone**](http://tuesdaysgone.livejournal.com/) for the read-through and title help, from "Fragments" by The Who. Originally posted [here](http://community.livejournal.com/no_tags/14758.html), January 2010.

The first time, in Gerard and Lyn-Z's apartment in New York, Bob pressed his fingers into Lindsey's hip, gritting his teeth against the pain in his wrist and the slick-tight wetness of her. Gerard breathed hot and damp into Bob's shoulder, his dick nestled against Bob's ass, and every time Bob flexed into Lindsey his breath caught somewhere in his throat, faster and tighter until he wasn't breathing at all. Until Lindsey was grinding back and Bob was shoving in and in and in, the head of Gerard's dick slipping over his asshole with every thrust; until the blackness behind Bob's closed eyes exploded into white as he bottomed out, spilling into her.

In the morning there were bruises on Lindsey's hip, purple smudges along the jut of bone. They were faded yellow-green by the time Bob boarded a plane at Newark airport, bound for O'Hare with fresh teeth marks on his collarbone.

It's always the same after that first time: a little too easy and a little too quietly desperate; all of them clinging and biting, not exactly careless but nothing like careful either.

*

Everything's different when Lindsey gets pregnant.

She and Gerard are in L.A. instead of New York, and the only bruises on Bob's skin are the ones he banged to the surface himself. He shares his bed in Chicago with three dogs instead of two people and tells himself he isn't lonely. And it's easy to miss a phone call or ten, between the break and Bob's surgery and Gerard playing bandwife.

But then Bob's phone rings on a Tuesday afternoon, and it's both of them on the other end of the line, their voices high and happy, tripping over each other to tell him the news and demand that he get his ass out to L.A. all in the same breath.

"Yeah?" Bob asks, halfway between surprised and relieved, his heart lodged somewhere between his chest and his throat. He's thrilled, and fucking terrified, because it's been too long and nothing's the same; he doesn't know what to think or how to feel, except that holy shit, Lindsey's gonna have a baby. And he _misses_ them.

"Yeah!" Gerard laughs. "C'mon, we haven't seen you in forever."

"Please?" Lindsey says, and twelve hours later Bob's putting the first of two thousand miles under the Jeep's tires.

But it's different. In Bob's head, if not quite his heart, it's different. There's so much more at stake, now; so much more to lose, and he has no idea how to guard any of them. Least of all himself.

*

Gerard's waiting outside when Bob pulls up. The house looks lived-in now, even from the outside; last time Bob was here it was more boxes than anything. So much has changed, but he can think about that later, when he's not fighting with the seatbelt. Or his own stupid jagged breathing.

"About damn time," Gerard calls, ambling down the driveway to help Bob with his bags. Dixie jumps out of the backseat, sniffing excitedly at Gerard's feet. He reaches down to scratch behind her ears.

"Fuck you, man, I made it in record time." Bob laughs as he throws open the door, but his stomach's all nervous flutter and cold, hard knots tightening right behind his navel when Gerard throws his arms around Bob's middle and squeezes. Bob turns his face to Gerard's neck and the familiar dusty smell of dirty clothes and dirtier hair, of coffee and cigarettes and sweat.

"Fuck _you_ , asshole," Gerard says, thick and fond, curling his fingers in Bob's hair. "You could've flown and been here two days ago."

Bob shrugs twitchily into the hug. "I was due for a roadtrip."

It's true enough; sometimes it's not just the lack of warm bodies that make it hard to sleep, it's the lack of movement underneath him. Solid ground makes him restless. But he also needed that buffer, those two days and thousands of miles, between Lindsey's "please?" and this.

"Where's Linds?" Bob asks.

Gerard pulls back, his hand still resting lightly on Bob's shoulder. "Taking a nap. She was making us both fucking crazy with the pacing in front of the window. And, you know." Gerard gestures vaguely with his hand. "Hormones."

Bob snorts. "You know she'd kick your ass for saying that, right?"

"Which is why I'm saying it while she's asleep," Gerard nods. "And also why you're not gonna tell her I said it." He flashes Bob a smile that's hard to read, mischievously wide and still somehow small and secret. "Wanna come wake her up with me?"

Bob's heart skips in his chest, like a rock skimming over water. He nods once, twice, reflexive and quick, before he has a mind to stop himself and think. He grins back and says, "Absolutely."

*

The bedroom's afternoon-dark, all murky shadows and slices of pinkish light on the pale walls. And Lindsey, curled around a pillow in the middle of the bed, her hair a dark fan across the blankets. Bob hovers in the doorway, his hands shoved deep-deep in his pockets, anxiously fingering the bits of paper and tobacco and lint collected in the seams while Gerard crouches at the side of the bed.

"Linds?" he whispers, coaxing.

Lindsey groans and mashes her face into the pillow. "No. Sleeping."

Gerard climbs onto the bed, and she fits herself against his side when he leans in, rubbing noses with her. "Bob's here."

A slow smile spreads across Lindsey's mouth and a bloom of heat expands in Bob's chest, in the spot where nothing's been the same since the last time he saw them. She stamps a quick kiss to Gerard's mouth and pushes up onto her elbow, grabbing at the air in Bob's direction with her other hand.

He expected her to look different, somehow, that she'd be sort of... fuller. But it's too soon for that, he supposes. Still, something in her face has changed already, some indistinguishable happy thing. Looking at them side by side, Bob realizes Gerard has it, too. And that's good. Better than good, even.

"C'mere, you," she says, and Bob toes off his shoes, only hesitates a second before slipping in next to her. Fuck self-preservation; this, he knows, is where he belongs. At least right now.

He kisses her mouth, kisses Gerard's when he nudges in, and the only thing that's different now is that Bob keeps his hand splayed low on her belly while he fucks her, keeps his touch purposely gentle.

*

It's not so different.

He still falls asleep last and wakes up first, to matching blue-black bedheads and milk-pale limbs; he still makes the coffee while Gerard and Lindsey sleep in, and lets the dogs out while it brews. He still takes out the trash and collects the dirty mugs Gerard leaves all over the house and runs the dishwasher without being asked.

Lindsey still tucks herself under Bob's arm when they watch TV and begs him to make omelettes in the morning. Gerard still surprises him with the sharpness of his teeth and the deftness of his hands.

Bob still fits right into their lives, into their bed, into the Bob-shaped space they made for him. He still loves them, and this, so much it makes his stomach hurt sometimes.

*

It's Lindsey who asks him to stay, who says the words over plates of French toast the morning Bob's supposed to head back to Chicago.

"We're only letting you go if you promise to come back," she says matter-of-factly. She saws off a corner of bread with the side of her fork and pops it in her mouth. "As in, soon. And for good."

"Chicago sucks in winter anyway," Gerard chimes in, pretending not to notice when Lindsey steals a sip of his coffee. "So?"

"But," Bob starts. It's not that he doesn't want to stay, or come back, or be with them, but, "What about, you know, the baby?"

"What about it?" Lindsey asks.

Bob stares down at his breakfast, fork poised, struggling to find words that might make some kind of sense outside his head. Because it's weird, right, that they still want him here? And it's definitely a little fucked up that he doesn't want to say no.

"I don't know," he shrugs, frustrated into irritation. He scratches at his beard, fidgets in his chair. "I can't-"

"Look," Gerard says abruptly, all seriousness and furrowed brow. He reaches over to touch Bob's arm, his fingertips lingering at the sensitive inside of Bob's elbow. "We define what makes a family. We define what makes _our_ family. And you are, so."

"So come back for good," Lindsey says.

And maybe this is the best and only way he can protect anybody; maybe what they have, the three of them, needs looking after more than any of them separately--the whole greater than the sum of its parts.

Bob nods, meets both Gerard's and Lindsey's eyes across the table and knows that they're right. That this is right.

"Okay," he says, and nods again, firmer and surer. "Yes."


End file.
